coffee & environment

At the age of 21 I was a fan of neither coffee or tea. Today at 22 1/2 i love tea and have only a couple of weeks ago grown to be fond of coffee. I still am a complete nub and don't really know what's what but I do know that there is a considerable amount of market politics going on with coffee. (As are most agricultural products) I have heard a lot of people talk about fair trade but I am ashamed to admit that I never listened carefully since I wasn't into coffee. Right now I'm just drinking safeway organic coffee but I am still concerned about the farmers so I'll have to see if i can find a fair trade organic brand. Which I suppose shouldn't be too difficult in Santa Cruz. possible follow up on this next time i buy coffee!

In other coffee impacts, Jane Goodall has announced that Tanzanian agricultural practices are good for chimpanzees!! And of course we know that Jane is the global aficionado on chimps so how can we say no? Included in the article is some information about both chimps and coffee that you may find to be of interest. I think that we're just crazy about chimps because they're related to us but their endangerment is such an ecology problem, and I don't sympathize very well. Sure our human impacts should be so bad that we're endangering so many species. In fact I will recognize that the rates at which we are losing biodiversity are alarming. The biologists general definition of a mass extinction is when half of the extant species disappearing in half a million years. Scientists have for the most part come to agree that this is happening now but I believe that we should be addressing the causes and be more concerned about the much more widespread effect that climate change will have. We can't go running around trying to pick up the pieces of our environmental destruction by saving one species at a time, this is the time to address the problems head on. I am going to stop myself before going into a full on rant, but I hope that short discussion was educational and thought provoking. Please take some time and consideration to appreciate and protect the other organisms we share this planet with in any way you find right for you. Even if it is just buying coffee for the chimps ( :